ViewNX-i problems

[David H. Hartman]

Tom,

Have you determined that you are using the version of Nikon Transfer that came with the latest version of ViewNXi? Peek under the hood and be sure.

You might try AppCleaner.app just to see were all the files are. You don't have to send them to the trash. You can quit AppCleaner at the dock to avoid a mistake.

Dave

[MFloyd]

http://nikonrumors.com/2016/12/29/nikon-reports-possible-view-nx-i-image-data-corruption-when-using-nikon-transfer-2-on-the-latest-versions-of-macos-sierra.aspx/

[tommiejeep]

Dave, so far no problem.  ViewNX2 is my primary catalogue (and my wife's) .  All images show up in the folders for Sony and Olympus , as jpeg, and in Bridge in jpeg and RAW(what ever it is called).

It is a bit of a convoluted work flow since I normally have ViewNX2 and Bridge open.   I can open the RAW Nikon images from ViewNX2 in PS CC2015.   My wife has updated to CC 2017 but I had to find Nik entry from 2015 and paste it into her 2017 but it works.   There are probably much easier ways of cataloguing images but these days I do not do any PP to more than 5/10 % of the shots and I am used to the workflow.

I did not use the disc which came with the D500 (nor have checked) , I just downloaded from Nikon Message Centre.   I keep both ViewNX2 and View NX-i.   I often use CNX2 for the older cameras and often do the Df images in both CNX2 and PS.   I may spend some time with LR.   I now automatically open the D500 files with View NX-i's Nikon Transfer and after all are downloaded I close it and open ViewNX2.   I normally do my culling and then transfer the renamed folders to Externals. My wife's newest External ceased to function (trying to recover) so now use multiples.  Bridge is very time consuming to cull.  Need to work on that  .  I spent some time with CNX-D when it first came out but was not impressed.

Working out my preferred D500 settings for AF and metering is taking some time and I am taking more shots as a result.  Deleting more from the camera.  I rarely use group focus on the D750.  D500 seems improved but am missing the head and eyes on too many BIF images so back to 25pt.  Trying to see how 25Pt equates to 9Pt  .   Before age and health issues caught up with me, my keeper rate for Eyes was highest using single point even with fast action.
I will continue to watch 

[Tom Hook]

Tom,

Have you determined that you are using the version of Nikon Transfer that came with the latest version of ViewNXi? Peek under the hood and be sure.

You might try AppCleaner.app just to see were all the files are. You don't have to send them to the trash. You can quit AppCleaner at the dock to avoid a mistake.

Dave

I knew I was using the latest ViewNXi (1.2.4) when I upgraded Sierra to 10.12.2, which of course is when all the problems began. It isn't difficult to use the finder, just more time consuming. After all is said and done, I had eight images corrupted none of them of any great value as I was just playing around with a new camera.

I count myself lucky.

And, I can live with the work-around until Nikon fixes the problem.

[MFloyd]

Everybody should know now that Nikon is not very good in producing end-user / consumer PP software.  I stay away from it; the few times I'm using NX-i is to find back / verify shot parameters, in particular focusing information (which sensor the camera used to focus). The entry point of my importing goes through Lr (and ends for 5-10% of the time in Ps).

[David H. Hartman]

I discovered a way to temporarily solve the problem of this program being in a seemingly permanent crash loop. I deleted the c:\users\username\AppData\Local\Nikon\ViewNX-i directory. After this the software seems to work normally again. For a time at least.

Thanks! I had forgotten this. I puzzled over the path for a minute or two then realized this was Windows. I located...

Macintosh HD\users\username\library\application support\ViewNX-i and renamed the folder to ViewNX$i

ViewNX-i v1.2.4 64bit had been crashing 100% on me and now it booted up properly and as expected it created a new ViewNX-i folder. I deleted the old one and now ViewNX-i is working fine. We'll see if it keeps working.

Best,

Dave Hartman

I'm guessing there is a bit of error trapping code that's missing and when an error occurs the software can't recover and crashes. For example if there is a problem with thumbnails the software should rebuild them. If the cache folder is deleted then it rebuilds the thumbnails without the crash. I noted a Cache and DB folder in the ViewNX-i folder. Thumbnails is just a guess.

[arthurking83]

....

Windows: it's running reliability but, and it's a big one, when viewing at 100% as when checking focus on eyes it show a gray screen with "processing" when the NEF has a sidecar with development information this last a long time. The makes moving from one NEF to the next deathly slow and renders ViewNXi pretty much useless.

Does anyone know a way to force ViewNXi to use the imbedded JPG and ignore the sidecar files for previewing NEF(s)?....

ViewNX-i is similar to ViewNX2 with respect to viewing raw files in raw mode, or jpg preview mode:

Top left hand corner of the image review screen area is a small grey/yellow icon marked [raw]/

By default it should be grey, denoting jpg preview mode.
Click the icon and it turns yellow, denoting raw data mode.

I just tried it on my PC.
basic PC specs are: AMD FX8350(not the speediest, but plenty of grunt for what I need), RAM=32G DDR3, mainboard Gigabyte 990FX based.

Drives:
ageing HDD 2Tb from WD(black) average data transfer rates ~ 80-100Mb/s
On this drive, above, ViewNX-i loads the raw data mode images(D800E) in about 5sec. maybe half a sec of that grey screen processing, then the image(blurred), and then detailes.
in jpg preview mode, images loaded in about 1sec to detailed view, approx half a sec blurred, never the grey processing screen.

On the middle of the road speedy SSD(~ 500-600Mb/s) there is a very slight improvement, but only in that in raw data mode, I don't see the grey processing screen. All other times appear about the same.

My previous experience with Nikon's software is that faster storage + faster loading/processing times.
Having the 256Gb SSD now as my temp storage location has turned CaptureNX2 from fast to almost blistering!

I think ViewNX-i is simply too slow, basic and low featured to be of any value for every day usage. ViewNX2 is still my preferred choice(as I use compatible cameras).
I have ViewNX-i for those times when I want to view raw files from newer cameras only(ie. very little usage).

[David H. Hartman]

I've had problems with ViewNX2 (last version). It displays thumbnails for NEF(s) from the wrong folder. When I click the thumbnail the correct NEF is previewed. I could easily delete an NEF based on see the wrong thumbnail being displayed. I've stopped using ViewNX2 on Windows 7.

I strongly recommend against using Nikon Transfer 2 shipped with any version of ViewNX2. It's not supported and it can corrupt an NEF. I'm probably repeating myself regarding VNX2 and Transfer 2.

Dave Hartman

[Øivind Tøien]

I've had problems with ViewNX2 (last version). It displays thumbnails for NEF(s) from the wrong folder. When I click the thumbnail the correct NEF is previewed. I could easily delete an NEF based on see the wrong thumbnail being displayed. I've stopped using ViewNX2 on Windows 7.

Although I never experienced that it displayed nefs from the wrong folder, I found that the latest version of ViewNX2 would consequently crash when it tried to generate thumbnail view of a certain file in a folder. There was really no system to what kind of files would cause the crash except for being specific to one or two specific files in a folder. I have consequently banned the latest ViewNX2 version from my computer and use v. 2.10.2  which is more stable.

[David H. Hartman]

...I found that the latest version of ViewNX2 would consequently crash when it tried to generate thumbnail view of a certain file in a folder. There was really no system to what kind of files would cause the crash except for being specific to one or two specific files in a folder.

I found photos that are straighened but not cropped will crash VNX2  The extra data must cause the crash. I also found that photos that are reduced in size by Canvas Size in Photoshop CS2 and not cropped can cause alignment problem with layers.

Now I always crop after straightening an image in CNX-D, CNX2 and after using Canvas Size in CS2. Now I don't have the crashes or alignment problems.

Dave Hartman

[Akira]

The new 1.2.5 version of ViewNX-i has just been released.  It addresses image corruption issue on MacOS Sierra.

http://downloadcenter.nikonimglib.com/en/download/sw/89.html

Quote from the webpage avove:

    • Fixed the following issues that affected Nikon Transfer 2 under macOS Sierra:
        - Image data copied using Nikon Transfer 2 under macOS Sierra version 10.12.2 could sometimes be corrupted.
        - Nikon Transfer 2 would quit unexpectedly when users attempted to transfer photos or movies.
        - Users could not select slots in the Source panel when transferring pictures from cameras with two memory card slots.
        - Pictures taken using the Smart Photo Selector available with cameras in the Nikon 1 series would be transferred as individual images rather than as a group.

[arthurking83]

I've had problems with ViewNX2 (last version). It displays thumbnails for NEF(s) from the wrong folder. When I click the thumbnail the correct NEF is previewed. I could easily delete an NEF based on see the wrong thumbnail being displayed. I've stopped using ViewNX2 on Windows 7.

....

I've had this a few times.

I think(not 100% sure) why this happens is the thumbnail cache becomes too large, and possibly corrupted/confused or something like that.

If you haven't configured the cache location, then Nikon usually places it in some user appdata type location of their choosing.
You can determine this by delving into the Options menu in VNX2(Edit->Options) and under the General tab up the top.

It'll be quite obvious once you're in this settings option.
They allow you to set the location of the cache to one of your own choice too.

VNX2 and CNX2 both operate better when all files being worked with are located on the fastest drive possible, so changing this from the default can always be a good thing.
If using mechanical drives, it's usually best to use a reasonably fast and separate drive to help speed those programs ability to render images quickly(HDD latency).

If you're working off SSD type storage, you won't see any benefit by using a separate drive.

Under this General tab in the Options menu, you will see an option to 'clear cache'.
I've found that this usually doesn't resolve the issue(quoted above), and that deleting the cache files manually is usually best.

If you can locate the cache, go to it manually in Windows file explorer and look for various files with the extension .nkd and .nki
There may be about 8 or 10 of them in total, and named variously such as file/folder/large/medium/small .. or words to those effects.

It's safe to delete them all as they are only thumbnail cache files.
Make sure VNX2 is not running at the time tho.

What will happen tho, is that upon opening VNX2 after you've deleted them all, it has to rebuild all the cache files from scratch(a good thing if the cache has become corrupted!).
So initial loading of all images is a bit slower. Once the new thumbnail cache is built up again, subsequent uses of VNX2 will show speedier rendering of images.

Hope that helps.

[JBPhoto]

Nikon Transfer 2 does not work with Mac Sierra 10.12.3 and according to Nikon support, it is no longer supported. Odd though as ViewNX-i v1.2.5 installs it. Nikon really need to clean up their software and get it functional, in fact Launch Transfer is still in the menu dropdown.

Quoted from the ViewNX-i download page for v1.2.5:

• This software is distributed as a file named “S-VNXI__-010205MF-ALLIN-ALL___.dmg”. Download and run the file to perform the update.
• When performing the update, you will be prompted for the administrator password.
• Before beginning installation, exit ViewNX-i and all other applications, including any anti-virus software.
• Installing ViewNX-i uninstalls ViewNX, ViewNX 2, Nikon Transfer, and Nikon Transfer 2. To use any of these applications after installing ViewNX-i, uninstall ViewNX-i and reinstall the application.
• Users of macOS Sierra cannot use Nikon Transfer 2 to copy pictures from memory cards installed in a card reader or card slot. Copy pictures using the Finder or Image Capture.
• Read the information below before proceeding.

[Ilkka Nissilä]

I noticed something about ViewNX-i that may actually not be a bug in Nikon's software but in the Windows 10, perhaps. Sometimes when doing a first round of grading my shots in a large directory (ca. 1000 images or a bit fewer than that), after I turn on Filter and try to click on the filtering criteria, it hangs and consumes one CPU core but it just never seems to finish, and will not respond to any attempt of mine to interact with the UI of the software. Yesterday I had the same thing happen with ACR in Photoshop CC, and now I actually realize it has been doing that quite often, but usually if I wait long enough, it'll start responding, but yesterday my patience wore off and I just killed the process. I think maybe this started to happen when I switched to using Windows 10. I can't be sure of course but it would be peculiar if a similar problem occurs both in Nikon's and Adobe's software.

[wntmldrs]

Hello,
Working on an iMac and going from ViewNX2 to ViewNX-I. And going from El Captain to Sierra and ending up now with version 10.12.3. In the last update of ViewNX-I they 'fixed' the transfer problem by disabling the transfer function all together. Transferring and creating on the fly a folder with the date of today is my workflow. So I put back the old Nikon Tranfer2 to in my setup and it worked erratic. Couldn't properly read a SD-card and so the import was useless. Though no sign of corrupted NEF-files.
I did the complete tour of all the photo-management tools on the market and non covered my needs. No catalog, hiding the jpeg behind the NEF and non-destructive edit and import with folder creation.
And today I bumped on a work-around that works. The OSX Photoloader is setup to accept my cards and transfer the files to a directory. But I don't. Instead I now start Nikon Transfer 2 ( the old one) and it reads the entire SD-card of my D90 without a stutter. Transfers the whole lot, creates a folder, erases the files, ejects the card and starts ViewNX-I in the newly created folder. The only thing I do is complete the folder name with some description behind the date. And close the OSX Photoloader. I on't onderstaand what happens, but somehow the OSX Photoloader creates a situation where Nikon Transfer2 can do it's job.